screenshots, the alt project

The Alt Project: Weekend Report

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First thing’s first:

I’ve got the bear necessities on my druidling. /bow

I haven’t had much of a chance at all to mess around with the bear form yet, suffice to say that I’m rather enjoying it thus far and yes, I am one of those level 10 newbies who runs around doing everything in bear form and jumps all over Thunder Bluff and exudes “Wheee, I’m a bear!!” We’ve all seen them, and now I’m one of them. /shame

So the druid has gone from level 1 to level 10. Not bad. How goes the rest of The Project?

Meet Ralaenia Dexton. She’s spunky and upbeat and she likes kittens and walks in the rain.


She also likes blowing things up.

Yesterday she was level 19, now she is level 21. She has been leveling almost exclusively in Deadmines, with the help of a bunch of lowbie guild alts. We’ve all been having a blast running Deadmines with an appropriately leveled group of characters, all of us playing different classes (and even different group roles) than our 70s, which results in a lot of panic and laughter all around. Drives me nuts when there’s a hunter in the group though. The sounds of the firing guns and bows make me horrifically homesick.

BUT! She has Polymorph. And Blink. And Evocation. Evocation is one of the best inventions in the history of WoW, by the way. Just in case ya didn’t know.

So I now have a level 10 druid and a level 21 mage.

I have a confession to make though. Those aren’t the only alts I’ve been playing.

I also have a troll…

…hunter.

I have a valid excuse for this one though! I’m going to level this character Survival. Because it occurred to me that Tawyn leveled Marksmanship (she didn’t “officially” respec to Beast Mastery until level 57) and Lunapike is currently leveling Beast Mastery… but what kinda hunter am I if I’ve left an entire third talent tree untouched? So yes. Shantizar is going Survival. …at least, she will be when I get the money to respec. (I started this character a little while ago and she’s got a couple points in BM.)

If Lienna can do it and Trackhoof has a how-to for it… and Mirshalak makes it sound so fun and interesting… then there’s no way I’m going to be left out of this.

Well, that ends our special report. Coming up after a word from our sponsors: Hogger: horrible killer, or misunderstood defender of his people? Stay tuned!

guides, instances

The Pre-Instance Checklist

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I have my own personal little “Checklist” that I mentally go through when I’m going to be doing an instance. I thought I would share it with you guys in case anybody might find it useful:

Before Heading to the Instance:

–Ammo: Make sure your quiver/ammo pouch is full of the best arrows/bullets you can buy. If the instance is especially long you may want to bring a couple extra stacks in your regular inventory as well, but to be honest I haven’t found that I really need to do this in regular five-mans.
–Pet Food: I never bring anything less than a full 20-unit stack of pet food to an instance. If I know it’s a particularly hard instance, or one that is long, or that I haven’t done before, I’ll bring 25 pieces of pet food.
–Hunter Food: Unless you’ve got a mage handy, bring some food and drink for yourself.
–Repairs: Even if your durability is still at 90%. Get it to 100%.
–Bag space: It sucks to spend most of the instance trying to juggle what loot you want to keep and what loot you want to toss because you only showed up with three empty slots or something. (Trust me on this one.) Vendor stuff, put it on the Auction House or in your bank, or mail it to an alt and give yourself ample room for the things you’ll pick up!
–Potions/Elixirs/Buff Food: If you have some, bring it! Bring some for your pet too!
–The Right Pet: You probably don’t want to show up at Heroic Mech with the level 19 ghost saber that you just tamed a couple minutes ago. (Just a hunch.)
–Spec’ing the Pet: This is sort of an optional one and some people don’t like to re-spec their pet for every instance. But it’s cheap and it’s not a bad idea to give your pet extra nature resistance for Steamvaults, for example.

At the Instance:

– Growl is OFF. If you have Cower, it’s ON. If you have Screech, I myself like to turn it OFF (just because it causes threat on multiple mobs; I’m not sure if it breaks CC or not. Oh and a lot of tanks really hate the noise).
– Tank assist macro (feels an urge to write a macro article brewing) is set to the current tank.
– Pet is set to PASSIVE.
– Buff up: Is Aspect of the Hawk up? (I know I’ve forgotten once or twice). Have you used your food and agility elixir? Did you feed your pet some Sporeling Snacks or Kibler’s Bits?
– If it’s a group of people I haven’t worked with before I usually inform them that I am able to trap and that if they want me to trap something they should stick a blue square on it, and I’ll take care of it. Sometimes they’ll want to use a different symbol other than my usual blue square, that’s fine with me so long as they let me know (they always do).

Well, that’s my list. It seems long and scary but it really doesn’t take too long to do, especially if you’re like me and you like to be super-prepared and you go replenish your supply of ammo and pet food and repair every hour or so.

Everybody’s experience is different when it comes to this type of thing so develop your own list and find out what works best for you, but for the most part I think you’ll have a similar list. Do take note though that I have never done a real “raid” before so the list might be a bit different if you are further-progressed than I am (and I imagine a lot of you are).

Remember, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail”. Thus sayeth some random inspirational poster. =P

Happy instancing!

blog spotlight, blogs

Spotlight on… you guys!

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If you are one of those people who comes and visits my actual blog as opposed to reading it through a reader, then you may have noticed that the two very long blogrolls on my sidebar are no longer there. They had a noble life though, and as much as I would like to keep them there they were simply getting to be far too unwieldy and as such they have been retired. …or, at least, moved. I now have a completely separate page for my blogrolls:

Pike’s Blogroll

And that is what will appear on the sidebar. I contemplated leaving a few “Best of the Best” blogs on the front page but it’s just too hard for me to pick favorites when there are so many good ones. So everyone from the most popular bloggers to the very-newest-bloggers all reside on the same page.

Why are my blogrolls so big? Because I maintain that a lot of my skill as a player comes through posts made in WoW blogs, and as such I want to help to promote blogs and articles that continue to educate (and entertain) me. See, look, here’s just a brief sampler of some of the neat stuff that’s been posted in the past week alone:

Mirshalak tells us how he solo’s Scholomance as a Survival Hunter and shares his views on how, on some situations, the cookie cutter talents builds might not be quite as effective as the more unusual ones.

Pelides has a very informative post about Feign Death and when and how to use it.

Trackhoof tells us about meta gems for hunters in various situations.

Drotara has a super-informative post about shot rotations, it’s really one of the most nicely-summarized articles I’ve seen on the topic and it’s definitely worth a look.

Over at Great Green Hunter we have a post about the pros and cons of using various popular pets in arena.

Siha at Banana Shoulders made a super-useful jewelcrafting reference sheet.

Critical QQ has some handy tips regarding that urge to go spend time in battlegrounds mid-leveling.

And Trollin’ spills the beans and tells us just how he made that awesome click-able blogroll of his that everybody has been drooling over for a while now. …at least, I know I have.

See what I mean about learning from other bloggers? That’s why my blogroll is so gigantic. So go take a look if you haven’t already, and maybe you’ll learn something new! =D

pets, screenshots

Sweet Dreams are Made of This

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So the other day I was browsing the fan art section of the World of Warcraft website, and stumbled across a stunningly gorgeous picture that promptly became my new desktop wallpaper:


So maybe I’m really just an obsessed hunter-addict (okay, so there’s no “maybe” about it), but I can’t stop looking at this picture. It’s just a compelling and dynamic image. And standing at the side of that powerful hunter, almost appearing to to be materializing from the shadows, is an ever-faithful wolf pet.

So of course I had to go tame myself a wolf.

I picked the Bloodmaul Dire Wolf in Blade’s Edge. He comes with the highest rank of Furious Howl, and before I tamed him I temp-tamed a raptor from Netherstorm and obtained the highest rank of Bite for myself as well. This is my third stable slot, after all, so I’d best get everything I need beforehand.

Is the wolf gonna stay? I’m not sure. I haven’t had anytime to play around with him yet and he’s only level 65. It’s going to be neat, I think, to try having something other than a pure DPS pet. The wolf is more of a well-rounded pet, sacrificing some DPS for some armor. I think he might be good for grinding and solo’ing. One thing is for sure: he needs a name.

And once he gets a name, I’ll probably get all attached to him.

Oh Blizz, why must you torment us so, with a mere three stable slots?


Hrmm. It doesn’t look quite as epic as the artwork, does it?

Someday, though. Someday when Tier 4 leaves the bounds of a young hunter’s daydream, as it is perhaps the most attainable dream in a garden of delights such as Loyalty Level 7, traps that never break early, The Ultimate Aimed Shot of Ultimate Destiny (And No Threat To Boot), and being able to surround oneself with a limitless menagerie of creatures.

the alt project

The Alt Project: Druid: Early Impressions

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Yesterday I rolled a tauren druid on The Venture Co., named Songlark (the actual naming process took about 45 minutes, because I’m a dork).

In character, she’s bright and cheerful and more outgoing than the hunter Lunapike.

Out of character she is my highest-level druid in WoW, at level 7.

Rejuvenation is one of my favorite things ever. It’s like a Mend Pet, only for yourself. As such, my current typical super-intense and clearly very experienced *cough* druid strategy goes something like this:

Pull with a Wrath or two. Rejuvenation. Moonfire. Moonfire again. …hit with stick until my mana comes back. Rejuvenation, Moonfire, Moonfire, hitting with stick…
Like that. Sometimes I’ll throw in a Healing Touch for good measure.

I dig it. I’m like a mage that can heal. Except I go OOM a lot faster than my mage does (and that’s saying a lot). But that’s because my mage has a bunch of Intellect gear and this druid, well, doesn’t yet.

So I got about halfway through level 7 and was having this great fun time and I was aiming for level 10 before the night was out, and then suddenly I felt it.

It.

“Piiiike… come back to us… you know you want to…”

“No! I’m leveling a druid!!”

“Piiiiiiike… we have cookies… and Kibler’s Bits…”

“…”

I logged out of Songlark and logged into Tawyn and spent the next two hours in Alterac Valley pewpew’ing stuff.

/blush

It’s a drug, I tell ya.

Currently I’m waffling over whether I should get the druid to 10 today or give another class a whirl. I suppose I’ll think it over while I’m at work.

the alt project

A Few Final Words Before The Alt Project Kick-Off

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First of all I want to say thanks to everybody for your input on my previous post regarding “The Alt Project”. I read all your ideas and comments and took everything into consideration. I wanted to post a few things though, to perhaps set peoples’ minds at ease:

1.) I am well aware of the fact that level 20 is not going to give me a sufficient overview of a class. The main goal here is to actually get some non-hunter classes higher than level 10 and get just a very, very basic, minimal idea of other classes. After The Alt Project is done, there might be an Alt Project II, where I try to get to level 30 or 40. And then maybe an Alt Project III. Etc. But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself when I haven’t started yet. Level 20 is an attainable and tangible goal that I can work on without feeling burnt out. And getting to level 20 on a class is better than not getting there at all. That’s why the initial goal is set at 20. I do realize this puts some of the slower-to-ignite classes (such as druid) at a disadvantage. But the whole point is to take things slowly and then go from there. I don’t want to set my sights too high at first.

I myself would say that somebody who played a hunter to level 20 should (hopefully) at least have a basic idea of the class mechanics. Oh it’s true they don’t get Feign Death or improved traps or Steady Shot or Scattershot/Intimidation or a lot of other very important stuff yet… but they will have spent ten levels with a pet and thus should have the very basic, “1+1” idea (or what I often like to call “Hunter 101”) down . That to me is the important part.

2.) Regarding specs: the reason why I want to spec into what sounds the most unusual or fun rather than what most people swear by, is because that is how I did my hunter and I am very glad that I did it that way. I was deep enough into Marksman for Silencing Shot before I respec’d BM. I am so, so glad I had that experience as a Marksman hunter. It really helped me a lot in regards to my playing experience I think. Now granted, hunters are maybe unusual; all three specs are considered to be fairly solid specs if you know what you are doing. And admittedly the gear-stat focus for each of the three hunter trees, is not nearly as varied as the three trees on a druid or on a shaman. But the point is, I know hunters who would never dream of leaving the Marksman tree or the Survival tree, not even for the much-hailed DPS machine that is 41/20/0. Just as I know druids who would never be anything but a Moonkin. And mages who will never be anything but Arcane. That is why I want to spec what initially “sounds fun”. If it turns out that it’s not fun, or it’s too gear-dependent, then no big deal– it’s super easy to respec to something cookie-cutter. I just want to have that experimentation option open at first.

3.) “Aspect of the Alt” is the best name ever. Thanks Lazz!

4.) Most of the characters are already rolled, on my main server (Silver Hand) for the most part. I imagine I might make a few characters on The Venture Co. as well. While trying out other servers might be fun I think I’d like to stay “home” for now, while I’m trying things out.

Once again thanks for all the comments and suggestions and constructive criticism. I really appreciate all of it and please do keep them coming =) Oh, and this blog will always be a hunter blog first and foremost, even if I do start sharing some alt stories every now and again. With Elune as my witness, the day another class takes over hunter as my favorite class, is the day I kiss a murloc.

…Murky doesn’t count. Because he’s adorable.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to put my laundry in the washing machine and then roll a druid!

the alt project

The Alt Project

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A lot of my guildies and the people I normally instance with haven’t been on WoW quite so much for various legitimate and very understandable reasons, such as school, work, and just-plain-needing-a-break. This has inspired me to sort of “stable” Tawyn for the time being; I haven’t been logging into her quite as much so she can take a little break too. Playing one character for a while does make me kind of antsy, anyway.

But I like WoW.

So I have decided to officially jumpstart an idea that has been running around in my brain for a little while now: The Alt Project.

Basically, I want to get at least one character of every class, at least to level 20.

“But Pike, you said you could only play hunters!” Oh that’s true, I won’t deny it. That’s why all my non-hunter alts have eventually wound up going from the “alt” pile to the “collecting-dust” pile. But I dunno, I’ve been thinking lately that it’s kind of sad how little I know about the other classes. I could probably tell you all the hunter talents backwards and forwards and play my hunter with my eyes closed (actually, once I did kill a mob with my eyes closed; it was strangely relaxing to simply listen and time my shots based on the sounds they made… but I digress *coughs*).

But I couldn’t begin to tell you squat about any of the other classes. I maybe know a little bit about warlocks because my boyfriend is one, and I know about a few mysterious moves that other classes have (like the mythical “Last Stand” that our tank will announce he’s using in Ventrilo, usually when things aren’t going so well), but I couldn’t tell you how to properly play or spec any other class but hunter.

And on top of that, I can’t tell you how to defeat any other class in PvP, except for what I’ve learned from experience.

This is where The Alt Project comes into play. If I learn to play the other classes, even just a little bit… it will expand my knowledge and my play experience, and maybe help me out a little in PvP situations.

So here are the rules:

1.) Get one of each class to at least level 20
2.) It’s okay to use existing characters unless they haven’t really been touched in a while
3.) Spec the way that sounds the most fun, hopefully to help keep the “I-must-go-back-to-my-hunters-NOW” bug at bay.
4.) It’s okay to jump between characters (i.e., I don’t have to sit down at get one to 20 before I move on to the next one, etc.)

Here’s my basic itinerary:

Druid:

Character:The highest level I’ve gotten a druid to is level 6, and that was on some random server I don’t play on anymore, so I think I’m going to ditch that one and start anew. I am definitely going to be a tauren druid– don’t get me wrong, I really like night elves. But see… ya know how you can really love kittens but not want to breed anymore because there’s already too many in the world? That’s sorta like me and night elves. So… yeah. Gonna make a hordie druid.
Spec: I’m torn here. Moonkin looks ridiculously fun. Bear tanking is something I’d like to try (I’d like to give tanking a shot in general, and bear-tanking sounds the most appealing so far.) Tree healing sounds fun for similar reasons; namely I want to try healing and the tree looks fun. Kitty actually doesn’t appeal to me too much simply because as I’ve said before, I have a hard time with melee classes. So if you give me a hybrid class I’m going to pick the caster spec over the melee spec. To be honest if I’m just getting to level 20 it’s not like I’m going to be able to mess with many forms anyway so it maybe doesn’t matter, but I think I’m going to wind up going Balance/Resto.

Mage:

Character: I happen to have a human mage at level 19. Now, because that’s so close to 20 already, I’m going to go above and beyond the call of duty on this character and aim for 25. There was a time when I was actually playing and enjoying this character a lot and I was thinking she would probably be my second level-70, but eventually the Call of the Wild was too much for me and I headed back to my hunters. Still, I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with my mage; and I still maintain that if I’m ever going to get a non-hunter to level 70, this is gonna be the character that does it.
Spec: I really have no idea what I’m doing in terms of a mage spec though I’m sorta basing myself on a “leveling spec” I saw once on WoWWiki or something. I’m going mostly fire. I like blowing things up. And casting the spells that make the peoples fall down.

Paladin:

Character: A blood elf paladin was one of the very first alts I ever made. I actually leveled her to level 16 before I realized that I was going into fits of jealousy anytime that I saw a hunter running by with their pet, breezing through mobs while I was sitting there using these confusing seals and judgments and dying all the time (yes I was a horrible paladin. It was like… my third ever character, okay? =P) So I basically gave up on her. Several months later I decided to give the paladin class another try, inspired primarily by the Tales of the Past III machinima which depicted paladins as being a lot more awesome than I recalled them being the first time I tried one. So I now have a draenei paladin who is currently at level 6, and I think this is the pally I’m going to focus on. I still find the playstyle to be a bit confusing but I’m having a lot more fun this time around.
Spec: “Ret for leveling” has kind of been my way of thinking but at the same time I really do want to give healing a try so Holy is calling to me. I’ll have to think this one over a bit.

Priest:

Character: I have a woefully neglected level 8 undead priest. I say “woefully neglected” because every time I’ve played this character so far I’ve had an absolute blast. I dunno why she’s so fun, she just is. Not hunter-fun, of course, but “DoT-Smite-Heal-Win” fun. I can’t wait to resurrect her (no undead-related pun intended…)
Spec: For a while I was waffling between Holy (so I can try out healing) and Shadow (for easier leveling); at this point I think I’m gonna throw both those ideas out the window and go Discipline. I like the odd specs.

Rogue:

Character: At first I thought this was going to be the class I would have the hardest time with… it’s purely a melee DPS class and I simply don’t have as much fun with melee as I do with other stuff. However, I have an adorable level 8 gnome rogue who I’ve been playing on and off lately, and enjoying a lot. Why? Roleplaying. I came up with the best backstory ever for this guy. How can you not love a gnome whose only wish is to be a Draenei? I took him to the Draenei starting area and he’s doing all his questing there; a bit hard because Draenei can’t be rogues so he’s gotta run to Darnassus to hit up the trainer, but it’s oh so fun. I love this character, melee or not.
Spec: I’ve no idea. Probably combat because I’ve heard it’s easy to level. But I’m probably going to put at least a few points in Subtlety, because the whole sneaking-around th

ing is one of the things I like best about this class so far.

Shaman:

Character: I have a draenei shaman who started out as a bank character, wound up getting power-leveled to 9 in a bored afternoon, and then promptly turned back into the bank character. I can’t decide if I want to pick this character up again or make a fresh start on a new character. Still thinkin’ about that one.
Spec: Elemental. Casting ftw.

Warlock:

Character: I believe I will be picking up my long-neglected level 5 gnome warlock for this one. I recall getting frustrated and giving up early with this character because my imp was failing horribly as a stand-in for a hunter pet. On top of that, I wanted to roleplay this character as “evil” and I just have trouble doing that. I think I want to modify her story and personality a little to give her some more quirks and interesting personality traits. She won’t be quite so purely evil. That will be more fun.
Spec: I’m totally thinking Demonology. It’s the closest to Beast Mastery that you can get!

Warrior:

Character: I’m going to have to make an all-new character for this one I think; I’ve tried warrior a few times in the past but never gotten very far (7 or 8 is the farthest I think) and those characters are all on servers I don’t play on anymore. I’m not sure what faction or race the new warrior is gonna be yet, though.
Spec: I have a lot of respect for tanks and I don’t know if I could ever play one properly; still, I find myself intrigued and I’d love to give Prot a try. But I think that might be rather difficult to level. In which case I’d probably go Arms or Fury or whatever the “good” warrior leveling spec is (I have no idea.)

Well, there ya have it. Can she do it? Can her little huntery heart manage playing *gasp* other classes?

We’re about to find out!

pets, screenshots

Everybody say "Grats!"

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So it’s a little hard to see, but…


That would be my Tux, dinging 70.

Lemme tell you a little bit about Tux.

He was the very first pet I ever tamed (aside from the “taming quest pets”) on the very first hunter I ever rolled– heck, the very first character I ever rolled period.

For some strange reason, he stuck by me even though he was starving and unhappy and rebellious for a little while because I had no food with which to feed him.

He stuck by me even though he couldn’t hold aggro worth a darn because I didn’t know I was supposed to teach him Growl.

He stuck by me when my strategy was “Hey Tux, let’s run around and melee things together!”

He was the pet that I put on aggressive in Deadmines, zipping around attacking everything and pulling everything because the two of us didn’t know any better. Or perhaps he did and was just too polite to tell me.

He followed me everywhere. In Westfall. In Redridge. In Darkshore. In Wetlands. Actually in Wetlands I tamed a raptor and Tux spent a good few levels in the stable, but for some reason he still liked me when I eventually pulled him back out.

Desolace. Stranglethorn Vale. Arathi Highlands. Swamp of Sorrows. Tanaris. Hinterlands. Felwood. Un’goro Crater. Winterspring. I went all over Azeroth and back again and the whole time there was a little owl following me.

It was around this time that I realized I had a little problem; namely, Tux’s birdlike nature and his big wings were annoying people that I grouped with. So out of courtesy I tamed my teal kitty, Locke. Now, I love Locke to death. And Locke was my first pet to hit 70 because he gets to go to all the instances.

But Locke is no Tux.

Tux is just a normal ol’ gray owl, a Strigid Hunter to be precise. He’s not one of those fancy white owls or black owls or super-shiny red-and-purple owls. Nope, he is just a plain gray bird from the night elf starting zone.

…and that is why I wouldn’t trade him for anything. We’ve experienced the entire game together, he and I. We’ve grown together and learned together and made mistakes together and never once has he complained.


We’ve come a long way, you and I…

So I guess what I’m trying to say is…

GRATS TUX!

guides, math, pets, screenshots

A Question for the Ages Leads to an Informative Post

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Way out in Netherstorm, by Area 52, there is a goblin named Dr. Boom. Who or what is he? Well let’s see what WoW Wiki has to say:

Dr. Boom is a non-elite quest boss with about 500,000 hitpoints; he does not move or use ranged attacks, making him a popular target for casters and Hunters to test their DPS output, as well as a target for leveling up ranged weapon skill.

So we can see that he is handy for a few things, aside from a quest. He is very handy for leveling your weapon skill (if you are not quite a high enough level for Netherstorm yet, you can always hit up those guys in Blasted Lands that don’t die.) And he is handy for ranged DPS classes who want to test their defining role: DPS.

Now, as BRK once said in one of his posts… hunters can’t really get the full story because you can’t use your pet on Dr. Boom. So even though you can get a good idea of your ranged DPS sans-pet… it’s discounting 35% of the story (or however much your pet contributes to your DPS.)

Still, I found myself heading over to Dr. Boom today. Why? Well, initially it was because I have a third use for Dr. Boom.

Namely, he allowed me to answer the age-old question… What happens when Improved Aspect of the Hawk procs, and you use Rapid Fire, Abacus of Violent Odds, and The Beast Within… all at the same time?

Well it doubles my vanilla DPS, that’s what:

Before:

After:

(Note: I also tested using Bladefist’s Breadth in place of the Abacus, since I typically have both equipped. The resulting DPS increase is not quite as much as it is with the Abacus.)

But wait! That’s not my total DPS… that’s just Tawyn‘s DPS. I am a hunter, afterall. I have a pet.

Now Tux is only going to be effected by Bestial Wrath and not all the other fun stuff like I am. But still…

Before:

After:

So now we have a bunch of numbers showing my DPS and Tux’s DPS, before and after using a bunch of buffs/trinkets. Remember, this is all “white” DPS: no special shots, no Kill Commands, no Ferocious Inspiration, no Frenzy for Tux… not even Hunter’s Mark. So the actual number in real combat would undoubtably be higher.

So why am I posting all this then? Well I’m not one for hardcore math or theorycrafting. But here’s what we can see right off the bat:

1. Unbuffed (except for Aspect of the Hawk), Tux is doing 32% of our vanilla DPS.
2. If we pop The Beast Within, Tux moves up to doing roughly 41% of our vanilla DPS.
3. If I use a bunch of speed-increasing trinkets/procs and The Beast Within, Tux is still doing about 26% of our vanilla DPS.

Obviously this isn’t telling us the full story; as I said before the numbers would change as we throw in stuff like Frenzy and Ferocious Inspiration and various special shots and Tux’s Claw. Also the numbers would change if I were to pull out my kitty Locke who does slightly more DPS than Tux does. The main thing I am trying to say here is: Your pet is important. If you are a Beast Mastery hunter and your pet dies, your DPS is going to be gimped down to about 70%– or less– of what you normally do. Furthermore you will be bringing no more Ferocious Inspiration or Kill Commands to the table.

And even if you pop all of your trinkets/buffs (minus the Beast Within), and double your white DPS, you still will not be able to make up for the loss of your pet.

Now there are times when things happen and losing your pet on some superhard boss fight might be inevitable. In these cases you can only hope he does the best he can, because not using him at all is exactly the same as him being dead. Well, except not as sad. *hugs pets*

But there are things you can do to increase your pet’s survivability. Here’s a short list:

–Sporeling Snacks.

-Various other stamina buffs or scrolls (I love using scrolls on my pet).

-Spec’ing him with Avoidance Rank 2.

-Spec’ing him with the appropriate resistances for the instance. BRK wrote up a handy list for Karazhan and various five-mans here.

-Keeping a Mend Pet up. Kestrel has a really nifty macro that lets you keep both Mend Pet and Scorpid Sting up at the same time.

-Knowing what you’re fighting. You should pay attention to the people who have been here and have done this before. Pay attention to the things they’re telling the melee DPS classes. If you’re in Mechanar and they say “Rogues, you have to run away when he ‘raises his hammer menacingly'”, then you need to mentally add “And pet.” If you’re in Shadow Labs and they say “Melee classes have to run away when Murmur does his Sonic Boom” …yep, that includes your pet. Watch for what the melee guys are watching for and recall your pet to your side at the appropriate time. Then send him back in when it’s safe.

Is it hard to do? Yep. But is it worth it to not only have that extra DPS, but also provide that constantly-ticking Ferocious Inspiration to your party? You betcha!

Happy Huntering, and give your pet a pat for being a good boy (or girl).

blogs, thoughts

Why I'm Still Here

4 Comments

So firstly I just want to say that I am probably more amused than I should be at the fact that Google Reader is recommending me to myself:

Anyways, on to the meat of this post.

First we had Someone and now just today Laser Chicken, two great WoW bloggers who have decided it’s time to quit playing the game and move on with their lives . While it’s sad to see them go, I’m also glad that they’re doing what makes them happiest, and on top of that… it’s really just the nature of our hobby. As I’ve said in a few different comments now… I’m going to quit playing someday too. It’s not so much a matter of “if”, it’s a matter of “when”. All the games I have ever been really obsessed with, I have eventually stopped playing (or slowed down enough that it can be considered “over”; with WoW you get more finality than with other games because you actually have to cancel your account and then you can’t play again until you re-subscribe.)

Lemme tell you a little story. Before I played WoW I played Neopets. A browser-based cross between virtual pets and an MMO. Now despite this game’s reputation as being just another kiddie site, let me assure you this is a very deep site with legions of adult fans. It has an economy the intricacies of which I’m sure are more in-depth than WoW’s. It has an astonishing amount of stuff to do and an astonishing number of goals to accomplish, goals which can often take months– or more– to reach.

I played this game every day throughout the day (being a browser-based game, you could multitask and play it and do other things at the same time, which was nice) for probably about a year and a half or two years or so. What really got me hooked was the money-making aspect. There are a few different ways to earn Neopoints and I earned mine through restocking; refreshing a shop page every few minutes, buying up all the items and then reselling them for more in my shop. I got good at this. I could tell you what the best deals were to resell. I could tell you what the rare ones were that you could nab. The economy was changing constantly and I had to deal with that and I loved the challenge.

This was all really fun at first. I had one goal I was working towards: I wanted the rarest most expensive Neopet in the game. It would cost about 2.5million Neopoints.

It took me a year.

One year of restocking. One year of playing games. One year of scrounging up every last Neopoint I could get my hands on. And then I did it: I got him. The rare dragon-like Draik. It was an immense accomplishment for me. And yes I know it sounds super-dorky. But I was really proud of myself.

I kept playing for about a year after that, because after I’d accomplished my main goal I’d sort of gotten greedy and there were dozens of other goals that I wanted. I wanted to collect all the avatars I could. I wanted to collect all the special sidebars that I could. I wanted to get as many trophies as I could on my user lookup. I wanted more Neopoints so I could buy the second most-expensive Neopet, and so I could paint all my Neopets rare fancy colors.

And as time went on… it quit being a game.

It became a job.

I would log on in the morning and do my dailies and maybe half-heartedly play throughout the day to get my allocated 10,000NP (my minimum amount of money I’d allow myself to make in one day) and then I would just be glad when I was all finished for the day. I was no longer having fun. I was merely playing for two reasons: a.) to maintain my status as a successful Neopets player, and b.) because I’d made some friends who I would chat with on the chat boards.

Finally this past May I started playing WoW. I continued to sort of play Neopets after that… less and less… recently my Premium Neopets subscription expired (you can play the game for free, but Premium nets you a bunch of benefits). I chose not to re-subscribe and I haven’t played since.

I look back on it and at first glance I see a couple years spent playing an online game, making online currency, so I could make some pixels on a screen look nicer than they do by default.

…but ya know what? I still feel some of those accomplishments I made in an online game were legitimate accomplishments. I set a goal. I worked for that goal. I achieved that goal. Yes the goal was merely fantasy, pixels that aren’t tangible. But the process of working hard and achieving something is very real. That feeling of accomplishment has stuck with me. I don’t regret the time I spent playing Neopets. I learned more about supply and demand than I ever did in school, I made new friends, and I learned that if you can put your mind to something you can accomplish even the most far-off-sounding goal.

When I started WoW I determined that I was not going to let it become a job. I was going to take it one day at a time, enjoy exploring the world and playing it how I want to play it, and then when I got tired I would quit. And that’s how I’ve played it. I’ve met lots of amazing new people and made new friends. I’ve found something that I can take pride in (playing my hunter). I’ve learned a lot about teamwork and group work… more than ever before I feel like I know what it means to work as a team, simply because of what I’ve learned from when I do an instance. And this will sound strange but because of WoW I feel like I have a new way to connect to my siblings (all of whom were WoW players long before I was) and my boyfriend and I also have a multitude of new things to talk about. If I do start to feel overwhelmed, I take a break. Usually the feeling passes pretty quickly.

“But Pike, it’s not real. It’s just a game.” Yes. But without launching into a whole ‘nother essay about why video games have helped me become a better person, I’ll just say that I read somewhere that it’s not that playing video games or enjoying other hobbies is a bad thing. It’s the time that you pour into something that you could be evenly distributing with other things. I play WoW a lot. I read/write about WoW a lot. Yes. But I also have a job that I enjoy, family and a boyfriend that I hang out with, and even the occasional forays into the outside “social world” (I have never been a social person, so honestly, it’s not like WoW has gobbled up my “social time” because I rarely had any “social time” to begin with. =P) However, I will say I’m glad I waited to play WoW until after I graduated university. (Quite glad!)

Anyways, the key is in variety and if you can maintain that variety and that balance then you’re doing good.

Will I quit playing WoW someday the same way I quit playing Neopets? Yep. I’m going to try my hardest not to let it burn me out the way Neopets did though. And I can tell you that all the benefits I’ve reaped from WoW and other video games are benefits that are going to stay with me. The game world is not real, but the people you meet are and the things you learn and the feelings you have are. So try your best to make your experience a positive one. It’s a game– have fun. =D

Everyday I'm Huntering